Leda's Retrospection
by Morbid724
Summary: (chappie 4 up!) What a snow day and a sprained ankle bring you: Clarice in Lithuania...Please review.
1. Leda's Fountian

            This is what a snow day and a sprained ankle can come up with – please enjoy. No sewing – characters below are property of Thomas Harris. I am but a humble minion. - M

The land lies barren and waste --  
the wake of unprecedented devastation.  
It is the dying of the day.  
He stands, at the penultimate hour of _tribulation!**  
**_ and even the air is fraught with a deathly still.

- Premonitions, Laurie Efrein Kahalas

It was December, and the snow was falling. The trees were blanketed in white fluffy snow. She had preferred to come alone. She stopped her rental car before a wrought iron gate. The figure of Clarice Starling was strange against the falling white. It is not because she is a contrast, she herself is not sunny, is not happy, and blends in well.

            No, it was strange because she was stepping foot onto ground that no one had stepped onto in many decades. It was strange for her as well. She felt alone, and she was, for miles around. The estate here was very large.

            She walked to the gate, disappointed by the lock, excepting something more of a challenge. It was mangled by rust and she broke it easily. The gate was heavy and made an awful screeching sound when she pushed it. 

            She shivered. It was harshly cold and she pulled the heavy gray wool coat around her to protect her from the chill. She continued walking, and stopped suddenly.

            It was there, that the oddest flash struck her. It was one of the oddest feelings she had ever experienced in her life. Her chest tightened and she gasped. She closed her eyes tightly.

Men yelling, carrying torches, yelling things in some language Clarice couldn't understand. They were in uniforms of some kind, one man, who seemed to be the leader, was pointing his torch at the gate. The men behind him looked gruff and hungry, which, on some level was a bit frightening. They bared their teeth, revealing horrid, rotted gums.

            Clarice, who had stopped, shook her head at herself and cursed out loud. She walked forward a few steps and felt another jolt of feeling. 

            _The men had cut down a tree and were using the trunk to try to bust down the gate. BAM. BAM. BAM. Repeatedly. And the gate screeched open._

            Clarice blinked. She had never had visions before. Never had a premonition in her life. And she didn't believe in them whatsoever. Believing such foolishness while growing up in a Lutheran Orphanage can get you into trouble, and Clarice Starling learned quick there, not to get into trouble. Standing there, feet cold in the snow, she thought her imagination was running away with her.

            She walked on, enjoying the quietness of the land. The dirt road was in need of repair, and Clarice felt shielded by the trees on both sides.  She held the coat close to her. What was it about what she had seen? It seemed haunting…somehow disjointing and she felt cautious, as if another jolt of this feeling could come on at any minute.

            She dared not turn around and go back. What would she tell Crawford? "Sorry, sir, I've spent a week in Lithuania, managed to find to estate Hannibal Lecter was born in, and when I got there, I got a weird sensation and ran back to the states with my tail between my legs." She sighed. That just wouldn't do. She just had to think happy thoughts, and she'd be OK.

            She trudged though the snow for another mile or so, reviewing what the Italian police had given her. What she had seen made sense: Nazi deserters overtook estate, killed parents, and moved on after the winter.

            She was just imagining what happened. That _had_ to be it.

            The road turned, slowly revealing the Lecter estate. Clarice gasped. It was huge! Vines covered the front, and weeds grew around it, but it was still beautiful. The house was stone, with pillars in the front and wide steps leading up to double doors. The glass was broken on the door, and one of the pillars looked demolished. It looked sad, like an old opera star, worn out and faded glory. Clarice stood back, observing it, sort of sizing it up. It was most likely bigger and in better condition even after the years and the damage the deserters did to it, than the gray, old orphanage she'd spent her childhood in.

            But probably, the most beautiful thing on the property had to be the fountain in the front. It was stone, filled with leaves, snow and ice, but Clarice was sure it had been beautiful. On the top, a statue of…Leda And The Swan… "Hmm…" Clarice pondered. She reached in the pocket of her coat and brought out a note pad and pencil. She scribbled down "Leda and the Swan." And returned the note pad to her pocket.

She looked past the statue. There was an archway, leading into what looked like a garden. She walked past the fountain and felt another bolt of feeling.

A woman. She had beautiful black hair flowing into soft curls on her back. She was young, but had a look of severe maturity in her face. She was wearing a beautiful,

torn evening gown and a set of pearls around her neck. She was on her hands and knees next to the fountain. A man in a uniform was standing above her, holding her neck. He yelled something gruffly at the woman and Clarice could not understand. He looked angry and threatening.

            She did not. In fact, she looked calm. Worried, but collected. Behind her, men were holding a small boy, and another man was holding a little girl, about two or three years old by the wrist. The little boy was struggling, watching the woman intently. The little girl was crying.

            The woman whispered something to the man above her, which Clarice could not hear, jerked her head up to look at him in the eye and spat in his face. While the man wiped this off his face, calmly, she screamed something at the small boy in Italian.

            The man smiled unpleasantly and shoved her head into the icy water of the fountain, as if he was politely doing her a favor.

            She did not struggle.

            It must have been the moment she died, Clarice thought, that the woman managed to look up into the boy's eyes from under the freezing water of the fountain, and Clarice saw something strange:

            The woman's eyes were maroon.

            Clarice looked at the boy:

            His eyes were maroon.

Soooo…whatcha think? I  think I'll go on, I have a few days off because of me foot. Thanks. As always, reviews are appreciated. - Morb


	2. Wanton Malice

            Here we go, folks. Chappie two. ANYTHING to avoid the cheese grater of doom, eh, Spam? Glad to see my Partner in Crime's alive and well!! I'll have restock the secret panel – er….I mean…SACRED CAMEL soon. :] Big thankie to all those who reviewed!! And for the folks over at LL – remember, it isn't over until the fat lady sings. Oh and the Italian in this chappie is courtesy of Smarterchild so forgive me if there are any mistakes. I'm not a foreign language whiz. -- M

Clarice stood up. Somehow she'd fallen to her knees. A chill went though her. "OK, Clarice," she reasoned privately, "What's so special about a boy with maroon eyes? Just a boy with maroon eyes…Holy shit, Clarice…Sometimes little boys with maroon eyes grow up to be cannibalistic serial killers." She shivered and shook her head. 

"No. No, no, no. Just my imagination." She muttered to the fountain. She took a deep breath, yet the vision of the mother's deep red eyes glistening up at her son would not escape her for the time being. "Next I'll be seeing white rabbits holding pocket watches in the garden."

 The garden. She walked to the archway leading to the large plot of land. Dead, wilted vines covered the garden side of the house. She smiled a rather far off smile, and laid her hand on the arch. _"Half an arch won't stand, Clarice." _ Her smile faded.

She walked into the garden, a tree stood, in the center of it. Clarice couldn't tell what kind. A bench sat by its trunk. She approached it and sat down. _BAM._ Another jolt.

 _Afternoon in the garden. The bright sun was warm on the face of the little boy. Clarice looked around her. Summer time now, no longer cold and harsh and icy. There were four figures, all sitting down at the patio table. Clarice watched closely. The woman, the mother who Clarice had witnessed drowning in the fountain, sat cross-legged at the table, was holding the small girl in her lap, and looked curiously alive. An older man, smiling down at the woman and his daughter. He looked strong and lithe, and the resemblance between him and the boy was uncanny. His eyes were intensely blue, and Clarice thought he looked handsome indeed. He turned to speak to the little boy._

_"Hannibal, la __volontà del __grande piano __arive __questi __pomeriggio, ed __io __spera __di __insegnarla __che. __Giocare __voi __gradisca __imparare?"_

_Clarice shivered as the man spoke the name, Hannibal._

_"__Sì, papa," the boy said, smiling and revealing small white teeth._

_The man smiled. Clarice wondered what they were saying. Something about a grand piano?_

_A servant came into the garden, though the archway, carrying a tray of tea. She served them, without interrupting idle conversation, was thanked, nodded in respect and left the family the way she had come. Such iron discipline seemed not to bother her in the least._

_A large dog barked and entered the garden from the field beyond the house. The young Hannibal, still holding his teacup, stood up suddenly, as if afraid the dog would frighten the little girl. He let go of the cup, without notice, and the teacup shattered on the patio's stone ground in a hundred pieces. The girl started to cry._

            Clarice blinked. This was getting creepy. She shuddered, the shattering of the teacup still echoing though her ears. The young boy Hannibal had seemed intensely concerned about his sister. At first, this thought struck her as bizarre. She hadn't thought to check birth records to see if Hannibal Lecter ever had any siblings. Apparently, he had.

            But what had happened to her? Clarice thought back to what she had seen done to his mother – and shuddered.

            She stood, took a few steps, and another flash came with it.

            _The young Hannibal sitting and reading a book by the side of a metal tub the little girl was sitting in. She splashed him playfully. 'Watch it, kiddo,' Clarice thought, alarmed that she would make him angry, but the little boy did not seem to be. He smiled to himself, closed his book, and laughed. She placed her chubby hands on his cheeks and laughed at him. Clarice was oddly unsettled by this. He stood up, and leaned over and kissed his sister's head._

It was not entirely alien to Clarice that Hannibal could show compassion, and not her realistic idea that Hannibal Lecter was simply born a monster that unsettled her now. It was unsettling to realize that he had once been like her: Clarice Starling was an older sister, and she knew what it was like to protect her siblings, share that kind of bond. It was the sort of idea that made her want to sit down.

            Unfortunately, at the moment she didn't have time to compare herself to him, she had a job to do; collect information of Hannibal Lecter's childhood home. She took out her note pad and scribbled, "sister" and "check birth records".

            Snow had started falling again. She exited the garden though the archway, and glanced back at the garden only once, warding off her internal boogiemen with her make-shift crucifix made out of twigs.

            She crossed the front to the stone steps and climbed them easily. The door was locked, but because the glass on it was broken, she reached though, careful not to cut herself and unlocked it – just a deadbolt. The door creaked as she opened it and she stepped inside.  She rubbed her hands together, glad to be inside out of the cold, and still, the house was freezing. What she saw amazed her.

            The foyer of the house was beautiful; the wallpaper was light green with rose prints on it, though most of it was peeled off. Clarice was wary of the floor: it was wood and it could be rotted and could cave in. There was a large circular staircase lead to the second story of the house. A few banisters on the railing had been kicked out, or had rotted. The furniture, which was a sheer shame, was almost all broken. A piano was quite literally the only whole thing in the room. It was beautiful, and sat next to the staircase. Wood and other rotted material covered the floor.

 Clarice made her way to the piano. Several keys were missing. She glanced out the window. Noon, she supposed. She pressed several of the keys and they still worked although, somewhat slow, perhaps from disuse. Lovely notes came from out the piano. Clarice scowled. She never had any musical ability in her life.

Another flash. _Oh boy,_ Clarice thought.

The young Hannibal Lecter sat at the piano, eyes closed, hands gliding across the keys. How old would he be? Clarice thought. 5 or 6. It was 'Goldberg Variations' and he played it well. He was smiling proudly, and Clarice was sure he was lost in the music. He looked intense as a child, even, Clarice observed, and felt like something out of 'A Christmas Carol', like the Ghost from Christmas Past. The little girl toddled up behind him on the piano bench. He stopped playing and turned, without having to look to see if she was there first. He picked her up and sat her on the bench next to him.

            __

_            "Ciao, Mischa." He took her star shaped hands in his six-fingered ones and aligned his fingers on hers. He put his right arm around her and guided her fingers on the piano. Music poured out of instrument. Clarice observed how delicate he was around her. Had anyone else interrupted him on the piano today, he might have removed his or her sweetbreads and enjoyed it with a nice bottle of Bâtard-Montrachet._

            A loud noise from outside, and Clarice saw the boy visibly stiffen and perk, as if sensing danger.

 Please Review. -- Morbid


	3. Leeches Bleed Too

From now on, I'll use Babel Fish. The line was supposed to be:_"__Hannibal, il grande piano dovrebbe arrivare questo pomeriggio e vorrei insegnarlo. Gradite imparare?"_ (I'm pretty sure...*shifty eyes*) Special thanks to Absolut who kindly provided me the linkie. Also thanks to those who reviewed. Inspiration struck today so enjoy! Gore in next chappie: I swear!! I'm not trying to hold out on you guys! -- M

Clarice watched Hannibal stand quickly, his head, tilted to the side. Even as a child he did this, Clarice observed. She looked out the window and gathered it was almost sunset; when she had seen their mother die.

_She heard men yelling from outside, though it was distanced, but gradually getting louder. She suddenly had the strong urge to help them. Clarice wanted to yell at them to run. She knew the deserters were coming._

_Clarice Starling, guardian to the lambs, knew that Hannibal Lecter was a killer as an adult. She knew it well. Still, as a child he was still innocent, as was his sister. Clarice found herself wanting to lead them to safety, to hide them. Something. But her legs wouldn't move. She was frozen in place, forced to watch, helpless._

_Her wish for help though, did not go unanswered._

_A rather large woman, who looked stern and businesslike, entered the foyer though a door on one side of the room. She looked at Hannibal with worried eyes. A nurse, Clarice thought. Like Barney._

_She walked to the piano, picked up Mischa wordlessly and carried her to a closet under the stairs. She sat her down on the floor and held the door expectantly for Hannibal. "__Il soggiorno dentro là ed è calmo. Non esca per qualche cosa."_ _She said, in a warning tone, and added, "Mantenga il suo quiet."_

_He walked into the closet obediently, nodded, and reached for Mischa's hand. She closed the door._

            _Hannibal's parents appeared at the top of the stairs. Both were dressed handsomely. The father wore a black tux and white bowtie while the mother wore the beautiful evening gown. The same dress she had died in. It appeared as if they had been planning on going out. To the opera or a party or something._

Clarice shuddered. She felt a cold wave of despair flood her. She didn't want to see their lives end. She wanted to stop the visions. _Now._ Before she saw them killed. Vague nausea filled her.

            Clarice Starling could handle seeing dead people. She wouldn't be an FBI agent if she couldn't. Clarice saw death everyday. It was part of the job description. But seeing innocent people dieing in front of her, being powerless to stop it, was not something Clarice could handle.

            "_My heart bleeds for him as a child."_ Clarice recalled Jack Crawford telling her Will Graham had said that about the Red Dragon. Clarice thought it appropriate to remember it now.

            She stood, silent and still in the foyer. Her .45 was consoling on her hip._ You can't shoot ghosts, Clarice, _she told herself, but felt better anyway.

            She approached the stairs. She took a step and with it came another flash.

            _The couple hurried down the stairs to the nurse. "Madame. Signore." She said, hurriedly._

_ The mother touched her shoulder, wordlessly asking where her children were. The nurse pointed to the closet, arm extended fully. The mother's eyes flashed, visibly maternal instinct was setting in. She put her hand on her husband's shoulder and looked at the door._

            _BAM. It made Clarice jump. The front door. Silhouettes on the window. They were coming. Clarice's heart plunged. She had been dreading this. _

_            The father looked at his wife in the eyes…those intense blue eyes meeting the deep maroon and her kissed her forehead. She stared at him pleadingly. "__Vada." he_

_said, and pushed her and the nurse though the door to the kitchen._

            The door cracked. Clarice jumped again. An axe, they were coming in with an axe. With a errie calm, Lecter, in his tux removed a small knife from his coat pocket. Clarice, at first, thought this rather conveinent. Though it made sense: perhaps Dr. Lecter had inhereted his father's providence.

            Clarice recognised the knife immediatly. A harpy. She heard a tiny noise below the cracking. A door opened from below her. The closet door, she realised. She looked. Hannibal, the young boy, had opened the door a crack and was watching his father.

            Lecter stood, ready for those outside by the side of the door, just beyond the window. The heavy door gave in, and a huge, rather hairy, lumbering sort of man walked in. But Lecter was ready. It was sort of graceful; like a knight slaying a dragon. He slashed, cuting the man's side wide open. The wicked blade serving it's master. A spray of blood crossed his white bowtie.

            What was worse was the grin that crossed his face when the man fell. It was that unworldly calm, yet utter victory. Clarice wondered for the instant she could, 

if Hannibal Lecter's father had ever murdered anyone.

            But his victory was short lived. Another large man stepped over the fallen and his fist struck out, hitting Lecter in the chest, hard, throwing him against the glass window. BAM. CRASH. Clarice winced.

            In one arm, the deserter held a machine gun. His smile was disgusting as he shot Lecter in the shoulder and arm. Clarice winced, closing her eyes, digging out the family onions somewhere in her mind.

            The small boy Lecter came charging out of the closet. Clarice covered her mouth, watching the almost sickening choas. The boy  leaped on the deserter's back. The deserter swung violently, and the boy almost flew off, but he clawed into the man's back and bit the man's ear as hard as he possibly could, tearing off a peice. The deserter howled in pain and hit the boy with his gun. Hannibal fell nearly six feet to the floor, near Clarice's feet.

            Winded, he scrambled to his feet. Four more deserters entered the foyer. They grabbed Hannibal, grabbed his father who was keeping his eyes sligtly open, trying to avoid blacking out, and they grabbed Mischa, who had been sobing in the closet.

            Clarice watched Hannibal's emotionless head hang, knowing he should have listened to the nurse, but not regretting. He smirked at the man who's ear he'd bitten and spit the cartilage at him as he passed, earning him a slap and a stinging cheek.

As always, reviews are appriciated – Morbid.


	4. Orion in the Window

Sorry it took me so long to put up this chappie. Been really busy. Exams, holidays, friends, etc. Many apologies. I am really sorry about the Italian (It is awful, I know…) – I'm only taking Spanish and have enough trouble with that. Had lots of advice from friends for this chappie: my friend Laurel, the Grand High Poohbah, and others. Thanks! Enjoy the chappie!

Clarice stood, on the stairs, watching sadly and longingly at the scene in front of her…the echoes of the yelling in her head…the grunts of the men…disgusting chaos and disorder. It all seemed like a whirlpool of memory…and she was helpless. They disappeared though a door out of the foyer, like a sick parade.

She tilted her head and sat down on the stairs, thinking. The helplessness was what bothered her most. Helplessness she hadn't felt for years, since she was a little girl.

Another flashback: but this was not from the events that took place in this house in Lithuania, unoccupied besides herself and the ghosts. This memory was not foreign or strange to her, yet it was no less disconcerting.

_ A ten-year-old Clarice shivering in the cold night air. She was freezing. She was a curious sight to behold. Her eyes were wide; she looked very frightened, running though the woods, trying not to stumble, and she was carrying a small lamb. _

_She had dressed in the dark and neglected to find a jacket or sweatshirt. She was so cold. Turn back now? No. Time takes no prisoners. She just wanted to run for miles to escape the scene that had just burned a special place amongst her memories. An ugly memory that would haunt her for a long time._

_The sound stayed with her most, and for a while she had thought that the lamb she was carried had still been crying. Had it been? How long had it been screaming? How long had she been running? It was a rhetorical question._

_She raced though the trees into the road. It was a country road, empty and quiet. She didn't know where she was going, but that didn't occur to her either._

_The bright car lights blinded her momentarily. She stood there just like a deer in the headlights, lamb still screaming in her arms._

_The broad-shouldered sheriff who was only handsome because carried the authority of the sheriff at his young age pulled over to the side of the road and looked concerned and suspicious at the same time. He looked fairly similar to the "good ole' boys" Mama used to have over for dinner a lot when she was a kid. The other police officers from her daddy's work._

_"What're you doin' out here on a night like this, darlin'?" he asked her as he wrapped his jacket around her shaking form. The lamb screamed on. Could he not hear it?_

_She didn't respond, simply knelt with a confused and terrified look on her face, wondering why he could not hear it's very obvious screams. "You alright, miss?" he asked._

_She thought she should run. Thought she must do something. But she couldn't move. Her legs felt like someone had run molten lava though her calves and the lamb by her side was furiously trying to scurry away.  She was vaguely aware of the sheriff using his radio, receiving conformation that the little girl had been missing. That she'd run away from her warm bed to this road only a few miles away._

            _"S'ok, darlin, it's OK…" he muttered as he pulled her to her feet and put her and the lamb in the front seat of the patrol car, while he obviously didn't know what to do with the animal. _

_            OK? NOTHING WAS OK. Wasn't that what her father had said before he went out that night and never come back? It was simple. No, not simple; laconic, but it was simply that._

_            She did not answer any of his questions, though she knew this was disrespectful, that her daddy would have been angry with her for not answering. She stared out the window. Right now she didn't care. Never had a drop of self pity flowed in her veins, but she couldn't help being mad at her father for leaving her here, without anybody._

Don't look; don't look, the shadows breathe…

            _Damned few SNO BALLS after that. Nobody would come home to her ever again._

_            "Now why on earth would you run away, darlin'? Gave your aunt and uncle quite a scare, you know."_

_            The lamb cried until they reached the ranch, pulling up the dusty gravel road._

_            With the look of a condemned woman, she climbed out of the car, cradling the lamb in her arms. She was silent. He aunt and uncle were on the front porch. Her aunt ran out and grabbed her tightly, pulling her close, while her uncle spoke in furious tones to the sheriff._

_            After the sheriffs tail lights faded in the distance, her aunt took her upstairs and put her to bed. But Clarice did not sleep. Her aunt and uncle argued and yelled, and he announced that she would be sent to the Lutheran Orphanage in Bozeman. He was unaware that the ten year old he would drive to the orphanage the next morning, listened on the stairs._

_            Clarice heard a whine from the barn and went back to her room and observed though the window. Her uncle walked to the barn where they had tied up the lamb she had tried to save. She could not see it, but she heard the gun's long echoing BAM. And the screaming abruptly stopped._

_            A tear rolled down her cheek as she glanced up at the constellation Orion._

If she were climbing a mountain in this house, her emotions would be her avalanche. If she were swimming in the ocean, her personal feelings would be her whirlpool. Did she subconsciously see a similarity between herself and _him_?

_ I have windows._

_            Orion is above the horizon now…_

            She was surprised to find tears rolling down her cheeks. She swiped them away. _Focus, girl._

But the thought would not completely escape her.

            She takes a deep breath and followed the footsteps of those who had walked there decades ago out of the foyer and into a library or study.

            The room was large and had been comfortably furnished as she could tell. Termites had chewed up most of it. Bookshelves lined the walls. High ceilings, of course. Could she expect less?

            _Little low ceiling life. _Her brain mocked.

            She noticed a round birdcage hanging in a corner of the room.

            She observed the bookshelves. She almost smiled when she saw Marquis De Sade, Marcus Aurelius, Descartes, Hume, Sartre, William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence", Freud, among others. Seemed as though contextual intelligence was passed on in this family.

            She noticed a door to the outside. She stepped out into the cold. Had this been where the deserters had taken the man, and two children? She noticed small gardening shed near the woods. She tromped out into the snow and approached it cautiously. It was very run down. The wood was rotted a covered in snow, making it look a bit like Atlas holding up the world.

            She froze. An awful feeling slithered into her gut.

            She stared at the shed and another flash came.

            _Lecter and Lecter being pushed to the shed. The father bleeding something awful, being dragged. Clarice realized that the deserter the father had killed must have been close to the man dragging the father. Revenge glistened in his dark eyes._

_            Some flakes of snow were falling, but it was not overwhelmingly cold. The baby Mischa was wailing piercingly. Almost sunset, the sky was painted pink and dark purple clouds hovered._

            _The doors to the shed were open. Loss of blood was surely threatening to take over the man. The man who had dragged him smirked._

_            This was sick, Clarice thought. The man was almost unconscious and they were making the children watch. Making him watch his children watch._

            In the shed were many gardening tools. Smirking, three of the six deserters took up weapons while the others guarded the children, and watched hungrily. A hammer, a rake, and a pitchfork.

_            Clarice winced, covering her mouth, horrified._

_            The child Hannibal was mortified. Clarice did not know that she would ever witness this, but the six-year-old's fear was etched in his face, and Clarice did not blame him._

_            It was like a B-movie, one of those awful, tacky horror films Clarice only enjoyed when Ardelia would allow it, made real, and Clarice did not have the remote control. She couldn't pause or stop it. This wasn't something she'd eat popcorn to, nor laugh about later. This was real._

_            The first blow was with the hammer, in the chest, hard. They were like hyenas, crowding around the body, like bees to their nest. The rake was next, digging into his skin, his back, his spine. He made a painful sound, even to hear. He tried to defend himself, his six fingered hand held up in the air, like a bloody flag waving in the air after a war._

_ They completely raked off the skin on his back, leaving a horrible scraped, bloody mess. They kicked him in the gut and face. The hammer hit down on his back, hitting revealed bone. Clarice screamed and clamped her hands over her mouth. She knew he couldn't move. He was defenseless, writhing on the ground, probably paralyzed for what they were doing to his spine._

_The child Hannibal was fighting his captives, trying to bite them, struggling help his father._

_The third deserter, brother of the man Lecter had sliced open in the foyer, kicked Lecter onto his back and raised the pitchfork over his face._

_Hannibal's mother ran past Clarice, into the shed and attacked the deserter with the pitchfork with a shovel and hit him in the back of the head. He slumped over unconscious. Clarice was stunned. The woman's face was so determined, so infuriated, that she did not resemble the woman Clarice has seen on the stairs at all._

_The father had told her to run away, she realized. That she had come back to help him and her children. She suddenly had great respect for the woman._

_One of the other deserters caught her by the throat and pulled out a knife. She dropped the shovel. He put the sharp edge to her neck. She struggled to reach her husband, lying in a puddle of murky crimson fluid. He smirked and handed her over to one of the other men, and Clarice knew he was ordering them to take them to the leader. She did not know what he ordered them to do with the children, but they followed the mother around the house, to the mother's demise._

_When they were gone, Clarice still stood there, still frozen, watching the deserter stand over Lecter like a lion after a kill. He smiled an awful smile and picked up the pitchfork._

_Clarice covered her eyes with her hands but she could not block out the sound. An awful, meaty, stabbing sound. She screamed as two deserters hung the body on the shed's wall, hammering nails into the limp wrists, like a piece of art you'd find in an office building. Like they were proud._

Clarice only stopped throwing up when she got back into the house.

As always, reviews are *VERY* appreciated!!__


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